Shocking footage shows the moment a quick-thinking Texas police officer saved a woman who was choking on a piece of gum on the side of a busy highway last month.
The Mansfield cop, Chad Stevens, performed the Heimlich maneuver on the woman after pulling over next to her white Honda SUV on Jan. 13, according to video released Thursday.
When Stevens got out of his car, the woman was gasping for air and holding her neck, the footage shows.
“You’re choking?” the cop quickly asked the woman who couldn’t reply, bodycam video showed. “Turn around, turn around.”
He then put his arms around her stomach and squeezed multiple times before the gum was dislodged and she could breathe again, dashcam footage showed.
Stevens first noticed the driver on Highway 20 in northern Texas near Dallas because she was in the left lane and had her hazard lights blinking, Mansfield police said.
The motorist, who police only identified as Samantha, told the cop the piece of gum got stuck in her throat after another driver entered her lane and cut her off, causing her to breathe in.
“Somebody swerved in front of me and I got scared,” she said, according to the bodycam footage.
Over the next several minutes, she frantically searched for someone on the road to help her.
“Oh my gosh, I was looking for anybody,” Samantha told Stevens as she thanked him numerous times.
The police department commended Stevens for his “quick thinking and life-saving actions.”
